Christopher Matthew Hennessy's Blog, page 6

One more reminder about open class

First, thanks to those who have already helped spread the word.

The deadline for signing up is Friday, so one last reminder….Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? I'm teaching a class Grub Street this Jan. and want to make it fills up with enough students! I really miss teaching poetry and am excited to get back to it. Please help spread the word to friends and who might have friends.

Here's the link to a class I'm teaching in Jan: http://grubstreet.org/index.php?works...

You can use this shortened link, too: http://bit.ly/vrkyOq

Good news about my book

Wonderful news! My book made it on to the Band of Thebes Best LGBT Books of 2011. I've been watching this list each year it has appeared, and to be on it has put me on cloud nine. (Rahul Mehta calls my poems "wise and courageous." ) I am also humbled to be on a list with authors I admire and respect so much. And a huge thanks to all the nominators (great authors themselves) and to Band of Thebes for undertaking a project that is so needed.

Also, I'm thankful to Steve Fellner for posting a very thoughtful review of my book over at his site Pansy Poetics (which you should bookmark though surely you already have).  Read the full review here.

Thanks, Steve, for your kind words and willingness to really engage with my book on a serious level.

Teaching poetry in Boston-spread the word

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? I'm teaching a class Grub Street this Jan. and want to make it fills up with enough students! I really miss teaching poetry and am excited to get back to it.

Please help spread the word to friends and who might have friends.

THANKS to those who have already done this and to anyone who can now. We're linked by 4.6 degrees of separation, so it's quite possible it will reach someone who is interested. I'd love to get this

Here's the link to a class I'm teaching in Jan: http://grubstreet.org/index.php?works...

You can use this shortened link, too: http://bit.ly/vrkyOq

'Going through me / like winter bone' – My thoughts on James L. White's poetry

Please check out this piece from the Kenyon Review Online! In it I talk about how James L. White influenced me and the poems in my first book. (Thanks, Zach!)

Here's a moment to entice you to read the rest:

White's writing not only gave me a kind of permission, it gave me one model of how to talk about desire (and sex even), both in a visceral way but also engaging deeper levels of associative power. For example, in one poem he dreams of a lover "going through me like winter bone." Here's that moment.

Some farm kid presses against my leg.

I look at the long backs of men in the field

and doze to dream you're going through me

like winter bone, your logs of arms pushing

me down into some stifling contract with flesh

until I break free for air.

For those of you with blogs, would love some link-love! And of course I love to do this sort of thing. Let's team up!

Mini-review of Love-in-Idleness

When we understand what we want out of our lives, it all becomes much clearer. "Love-In-Idleness" is a collection of poetry from award winning and prolific gay poet Christopher Hennessy as he speaks on the many twists and spins of life, and makes for an insightful spin of life that will appeal to any poetry reader. "Love-In-Idleness" is a worthy addition to any community library poetry collection. "Cold Comfort": There is comfort/in sleeping among your shoes/on the floor beside our bed/those nights you are away.//There is comfort/in wrestling away a blanket, naked,/cool on the bare floor, relieved/of the ceiling's dark eyes.//There is comfort, on the nights you curl, uncurl/and twist beside me, dancing/through my fever dream.//There is comfort/far away from us, too, isn't there./A neatly tucked-in bed, a single pair of shoes left at the door.

Midwest Book Review

A call for submissions: BLACK GAY GENIUS: Joseph Beam and In the Life

I wanted to share this call I heard about…
BLACK GAY GENIUS: Joseph Beam and In the Life


On the eve of the 25th Anniversary of the seminal publication, In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology, edited by Joseph Beam, we are currently seeking submissions for an anthology on the legacy of Joseph Beam and In the Life. This anthology will provide new interpretations of the late 80s and early 90s black gay arts movement, examine the contemporary political and artistic landscape for black gay men, and explore how In the Life has influenced contemporary critical thought as it relates to black gay men.  The anthology will be comprised of scholars from a range of disciplines, writers, activists, cultural workers and artists. This project seeks to build upon the work of In the Life, and perhaps explore where black gay men find themselves today.



Topics might include:

-Black Feminism and In the Life

-Biographical and critical treatments of Joseph Beam

-Memory, mourning and In the Life

-In the Life and Black Queer Theory

-In the Life and the invention of the Black gay soul

-Historicizing the emergence of Beam and his contemporaries

-HIV/AIDS activism and early Black gay identity politics

-Black gay artists/ is there a Black gay aesthetic?

-Black gay men and Black lesbians in dialogue

-Sex, sexuality and the politics of black gay writingsWe welcome your participation and we invite you to examine the guidelines listed below. Thank you for your potential participation in this important project.

Sincerely,

Steven G.  Fullwood and Charles Stephens, editors

Black Gay Genius: Joseph Beam and In the Life

Deadline: December 16th, 2011

Contact Information:

For inquiries: blackgaygenius@gmail.com

For submissions: blackgaygenius@gmail.com

****

Call for Submissions: Black Gay Genius: Joseph Beam and In the Life

Please send a copy of your paper, essay, poem, or interview to:

blackgaygenius@gmail.com by December 16th, 2011

Files must be in .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .rtf formats. Files should be named with the author's name and part of title of submission. For example:

"Stephens_Blackgaygenius" or "Stephens-blackgaygenius.pdf"

Essays, articles, stories or interviews should be between 4-8 pages or less. Poems should be should be a page (let's discuss.) Please note: the editors seek to collect and publish a monograph that covers a wide range of genres and perspectives.

In your email, please include the following:

Name

Address

Email address

Phone

Title of submission

If your submission was previously published please include the publication title, edition, and date

Thank you. We look forward to reading your work!

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Reading two poems (video)—and a big announcement

I'm not sure why this is bookended by big black spaces—sorry. Enjoy it nonetheless. Just click on my face.

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My book, and the stacks

I discovered my book is already in four libraries, NYPublic, Sarah Lawrence, U of Arizona, and Notre Dame! I'm psyched! It is more than gratifying to think that some day a young college kid, still struggling with his or her sexuality, might find my book in the stacks and be encouraged by it in some small way. Wow, that would be amazing.

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Hennessy on Hennessy, the showdown

Okay, so that heading is tongue in cheek! Let me explain….So as you may know, I've done my fair share of interviewing poets and writers.  Well, recently I took on a different kind of subject—myself.  On the occasion of Love-in-Idleness's publication, the kind folks over at The Nervous Breakdown asked me to take part in their signature feature, the self-interview.  The interviewer had to be the interviewee.  After an initial struggle at having to be in the 'hot seat' as it were, I realized, hey, it's just me.  And I had a blast doing it. It's not too long but I think it covers some important ground and, I hope, deepens any reading of my book.  Please read the self-interview here or here.

To get you interested, a few tastes:

"The world is a very dark place, full of sick (though maybe beautiful) boys who like to kill things. To run from accepting that is dangerous and intellectually and creatively lazy. I want the world I describe to reflect these things, to wonder about them, and to be troubled by desiring something that is so awful."

"When I write about sex, love, desire, I try to remember what the body felt like in moments of sex, love, desire. Then I try to bring my poetic imagination online and give that physical memory a kind of linguistic shimmer."

"If sex weren't dirty—"the animal spit of ejaculate"—we wouldn't need to find ways to make it beautiful. And the thrill would be gone."

And if you want to see my Press's update page, surf over here. They've added links to a review, this interview, and my video reading.  Thanks, BAP!

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An Amazon review of my book that I totally dig.

"It grabbed me from the first, "Christopher Looks". I felt less like I was reading and more like I was just basking in the glow of something brilliant and… immediate. The gap between the signifier and the signified is erased. The words are so immediate and urgent that you can't help but to move closer to the page, as if taking a bite would only improve the experience. The poems are insistent and real.

This is an excellent book of poetry. I read it in one sitting, and felt like I shared the experiences and feelings described within. I would recommend it to anyone. "

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Idleness-Christopher-Hennessy/dp/1936767023

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